Friday night our own Markos Moulitsas appeared on Real Time with Bill Maher. The other guest on the panel was former Lincoln Project leader and new Democrat Steve Schmidt.
Lately Maher has become nearly unwatchable, ranting endlessly about “cancel culture,” and choosing guests who can’t agree with him more (like Matt Welch). He rarely has someone on who can respond to his bullshit. So I was eager to see Markos in that environment.
Like Maher, Schmidt is a blowhard. Yes, he’s been a blowhard on our side for the last few years, even as a regular on the DK rec list for his stentorian, sometimes eloquent denunciations of Trump and his fascist followers. His repsonses on Maher were reformed Republican versions of the “Gish Gallop.”
With this competition it was a wonder Markos got any words in. Yet he was great — When he fought his way to the floor, he made the precise point to succintly rebut the tired clichés peddled by Maher and Schmidt.
In the end, he managed to make four great points about Democrats and progressives.
Point I: Government and Liberalism Work
Maher began with his now weekly whining about how long it’s taking to build his solar shed in light of government approvals. While CA may have a red tape problem, for Maher his shed problem represents the failure of liberalism and big government in general. He went on to rant about how the U.S. can’t do anything anymore and screws everything up — our Covid response compared with China, electing Trump, the Iraq War and the 2008 financial crisis.
Markos pointed out that all those failures (other than the Shed) happened during Republican administrations, and Democrats have to come in and clean things up. So no, Bill, it’s not “the U.S.,” it’s Republicans.
Later, when Schmidt made the snide right wing canard that “if we spend so much money on programs they should work better than the Post Office,” Markos responded by reminding him how in less than a month, the Biden administration has turned around Trump’s failed policies on Covid and the vaccine. Government works when people who hate government are not in charge.
Point II: Biden and Dems are not wusses who naively trust Republicans: Bipartisanship is following what the people want, not what Republicans in Congress want.
After Schmidt launched another rant about how Republicans are traitors, which is good to acknowledge, Maher went into his “feckless Dem” routine, quoting Biden about Republican “epiphanies” and how we’re always Charlie Brown with Lucy and the football.
Markos pointed out what Maher should know by now — Biden has defined bipartisanship as passing laws based on policies having broad support, like 86% for the $1.9 trillion Covid relief bill. Maher didn’t know support for that amount was so high.
Interlude:
In one of his rants, Schmidt said on January 6 the cops should have “shot the Shaman.”
I would only add, perhaps yes, but only if they made sure they also shot the deputy Shaman.
Point III: On-the-ground organizing beats high-priced ad campaigns
Maher brought up the cost of campaigns, leading Schmidt into a defense of the Lincoln Project’s ad campaigns, saying their ads made a big difference, and giving an excuse for not disclosing their subcontrators.*
Markos responded by noting that TV ads were pissing away money; that Dems spent more in 2020 than in 2016 in every state but Georgia, where Stacy Abrams et al. concentrated on grass roots registration and campaigning and increased Dem turnout by 600,000, compared with a Republican turnout increase by 360,000.
Point IV: The “far left” has no power and is not remotely comparable to the far right, which runs the Republican Party.
Disillusioned Republicans, current and former, are ubiquitous on MSNBC. Entire panels with the likes of Michael Steele, David Jolly and others expound on how their party lost its way (only beginning with Trump of course). I’d much rather hear more liberals (like Markos!), but so far, the MSNBC (and CNN) Republicans hardly mention policy (M4A, Choice, Climate). (No one ever seems to ask them about what they were doing pre-2016. Palin anyone?)
Maher thinks MSNBC muzzles its conservatives from speaking about issues because it doesn’t want to displease its viewers. In other words, the dreaded “Cancel Culture!”
See how easy it is for Maher to return to his favorite hobby-horse?
The door opened, Schmidt said there’s a “strident, crazy ideology on the left that is a mirror of the right.” (if you looked closely you could see the conservative lizard skin emerging from beneath his newly rational flesh cover.)
Markos correctly pointed out that unlike on the far right, the far left has no power, and Schmidt was compelled to admit the far left doesn’t run the Democratic Party.
So he fell back on the last refuge of PC scolds — “But the colleges!” ranting about how the Oberlin faculty lounge or something has betrayed “a core value of the enlightenment, free speech “ and is producing a generation of kids with no grit or attachment to reality (Maher was starting to feel that tingle down his leg).
Markos had none of this — As an example of the difference between Democrats and Republicans in how extremes are treated, Markos described the post-2004 election period, in which Daily Kos was rife with Ohio fraudster conspiracy theories (involving Alex Jones!). As old timers like us remember, Kos banned them.
Time ran out before Markos could address the “PC Campus” crap, but I would say to Schmidt and Maher, “Didn’t Maher have the Parkland kids on your show? Did they seem like they had ‘no grit?’ Didn’t you notice the legions of college (and high school) kids working their asses off for Biden (and Bernie, LIz, Pete et al. before that)?
Under very difficult circumstances, up against two of the biggest bloviators in the business, Markos gave a master class in Progresive Messaging.
*The recent problems of the Lincoln Project did not come up.